Grist mill for wet milling of malt



Jan. 13, 1970 c. LENZ I GRIST MILL FOR WET MILLING OF MALT Filed March22, 1967 INVENTOR WWW United States Patent 3,489,358 GRIST MILL FOR WETMILLING 0F MALT Conrad Lenz, 2 Annenhofstrasse, 805 Freising, UpperBavaria, Germany Filed Mar. 22, 1967, Ser. No. 625,210 Claims priority,application2G6ermany, Apr. 4, 1966, 3

Int. Cl. 1502:1/08, 23/00 US. Cl. 241225 5 Claims ABSTRACT OF THEDISCLOSURE BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to breweryequipment, and particularly to an improvement in apparatus forconverting malt to mash.

It is known to moisten malt prior to milling, to pass the wet andsomewhat glutinous malt through the nip between two crushing rollers,and to mix the milled product with additional water to produce mash. Abin for the malt equipped with a water nozzle is arranged above the millhousing which encloses the crushing rollers, and the malt is fed to themill by gravity through a chute or baffles which guide the material tothe nip and prevent it from passing around the rollers. The wet materialtends to form an arch between the bafiles or walls of a chute, wherebythe gravity flow of malt from the bin to the crushing rollers isinterrupted.

The object of the invention is the provision of simple and effectivemeans for preventing the formation of arches in the path of the wetmaterial between the bin and the roller nip.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION With this object and others in view, as willbecome apparent hereinafter, the invention provides the baflle or chutearrangement in the otherwise known grist mill with a bafile member whosetop porition is secured to the stationary mill housing by a hinge insuch a manner that the free bottom portion of the baffle member may movearcuately about a horizontally extending axis.

When this axis is vertically aligned with the nip between the crushingrollers, the baffle member is biased toward the nip by gravity. Wetmaterial descending through the chute or baffle arrangement between themovable bafile member and an opposite fixed bafile member cannot form anarch because the movable baffle member yields under pressure transverseto the normal direction of malt movement.

Other features, additional objects, and many of the attendant advantagesof this invention will be readily appreciated as the same becomes betterunderstood by reference to the following detailed description of apreferred embodiment when considered in connection with the accompanyingdrawing.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING In the drawing:

FIG. 1 shows a grist mill of the invention in elevation and partly insection; and

FIG. 2 shows a detail of FIG. 1 on a larger scale.

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DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring now to the drawing indetail, there is seen a frame 10 which supports a mill housing 12. Thehousing encloses two crushing rollers 14, 16 which are journaled in thehousing and rotated by a nonillustrated drive motor in the directionsindicated by curved arrows. Malt to be crushed between the rollers 14,16 is fed to the housing 12 through a top aperture 17. A rotary drumfeeder 18 flangedly connects the aperture 17 to a bin 20 mounted abovethe housing 12.

The lower portion of the housing 12 forms a downwardly tapering hopper22 which leads to the intake of rotary mash pump 24. A flange 26connects the discharge end of the pump 24 to a pipe 28 which leads to amash copper in the brewery, not seen in the drawing.

A valve 30 in the pipe 28 permits the material dischanged from the pumpto be recycled to the bin 20 through a pipe 32. The pump 24 is driven bya nonillustrated motor by means of a belt 34 and pulley 36. The pumpshaft has a vertically upward extension 38, the top of which carries adistributor plate 40.

Water is discharged downwardly against the plate 40 from an elbowfitting 44 arranged in the housing 12 below the rollers 14, 16 at theend of a water line 42 which also supplies a sprinkler in the bin 20through a branch line 70. The structure described so far is largelyknown.

The malt fed to the housing 12 at a metered rate by the rotary drumfeeder 18 is directed toward the nip 50 between the crushing rollers 14,16 by two bafile plates 46, 48. In the illustrated inoperative position,the plate 48 extends in a vertical plane passing through the nip 50. Thetop of the plate 46 is horizontally offset from that plane, and itsbottom slopes obliquely toward the plate 48 and the nip 50.

The baffle plate 48 consists of an upper sheet metal member 56 and alower sheet vmetal member 60. Two eye rings 62, of which only one isseen in the drawing, pass through openings 64 in the bottom edge of theupper member 56 and openings 66 in the top edge of the lower member 60,and form a hinge 58 which connects the two members. An inspection window54 in the housing 12 is normally closed by a cover 52. The movablebaffle member 60 is interposed between the window 54 and the nip 50, andmay be swung away for access to the nip by a handle 72.

The length l of the lower sheet metal member 60 between its hingedconnection at the rings 62 and its free bottom edge 68 is such that theedge 68 scrapes the roller 14 when the member 60' is swung clockwisefrom the position shown in the drawing.

The grist mill described above is operated as follows:

A batch of malt is moistened in the bin 20 with water sprinkled from thebranch line 70. Water running through the feeder 18 into the millhousing 12 is returned to the bin 20 by the pump 24 through the valve 30and the pipe 32. When the malt has absorbed an amount of watersufficient for milling, the feeder 18 and the rollers 14, 16 arestarted. The crushed malt is further mixed with the spray of water whichrebounds from the quickly rotating plate 40, and the mash so formed isdischarged from the grist mill by the pump 24 and the pipe 28 to themash copper.

When most of the malt batch has been fed from the bin 20 to the millhousing 12, and gravity cannot dislodge the small remainder still in thebin, wash water is introduced into the bin through the sprinkler line70, and the water, carrying some malt, is flushed into the mill housing.The rate of water flow is such that much of the water flows over therollers 14, 16, but the suspended kernels of malt 3 are retained by thebafiie plates 46, 48, the lower sheet metal member 60 being deflectedclockwise, as veiWed in the drawing, by the stream of water until thegap between the edge 68 and the roller 14 is too narrow to pass thesolid particles which are thus c1ushed in the nip 50.

When it is desired to inspect or clean the nip between the rollers 14,16, the cover 52 is removed, and the lower sheet metal member 60 isswung by the handle 72 from the illustrated position.

Although the chute formed by the baffie plates 46, 48 tapers in adownward direction toward the nip 50, the descending wet and somewhatglutinous malt does not form an arch which would interfere with thefeeding of the mill. The hingedly fastened lower sheet metal member 60yields under the transverse pressure exerted by the descending mass ofmalt and Water so that the pressure necessary for tightly packing themass into an arch is never reached. As the member 60 swings clockwisefrom the illustrated position, the material of an incipient arch isdropped into the nip 50 and the member 60 returns toward the illustratedposition. The oscillations of the member 60 are transmitted to thedescending material and account for the observed fact that the glutinousmass does not even adhere to the obliquely inclined stationary bafileplate 46.

It should be understood, of course, that the foregoing disclosurerelates only to a preferred embodiment of the invention, and that it isintended to cover all changes and modifications of the example of theinvention herein chosen for the purpose of the disclosure which do notconstitute departures from the spirit and scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:

1. In a grist mill having a bin for malt to be milled, two crushingrollers arranged in a housing for rotation about respective horizontallyspaced axes and defining a nip therebetween, and feeding means forfeeding malt from said bin to said nip in a downwardly extending path,the improvement in the feeding means comprising:

(a) two baffie members mounted on opposite sides of said path forguiding movement by gravity of said malt into said nip,

(1) one of said bafiie members having a free bottom edge part; and

(b) hinge means securing said one baffle member to said housing forarcuate movement of said edge part about a horizontally extending axisbetween a first position adjacent said nip and the other bafile memberand a second position remote from said other bafiie member and said nip,

('1) said one bafiie member being biased toward said first position bygravity and free to move outward of said path from said first positiontoward said second position under the pressure of material moving insaid path.

2. In a mill as set forth in claim 1, said hinge means including two eyerings, said one baffle member being formed with openings therethroughrespectively receiving said eye rings, and means fastening said eyerings to said housing.

3. In a mill as set forth in claim 1, said free edge part moving betweensaid first and second positions through a third position in which saidedge part is contiguously adjacent one of said crushing rollers.

4. In a mill as set forth in claim 3, the other baffie member having aface fixed on said housing opposite said one baffle member, said facesloping obliquely downwardly toward said edge part in said firstposition of the edge part.

5. In a mill as set forth in claim 1, said housing being formed with aninspection window, said bafi le member in said first position beinginterposed between said Window and said nip, and in said second positiongiving access to said nip from said window.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 295,043 3/1884 Ortman 241224 X301,020 6/1884 Waak 24122S 352,446 11/ 1886 Butter-field 241-225 X1,014,383 l/19l2 Frazee 241-224 2,560,837 7/1951 Alciati 24l167 XFOREIGN PATENTS 1,092,420 11/ 1960 Germany.

ROBERT C. RIORDON, Primary Examiner D. G. KELLY, Assistant Examiner US.Cl. X.R.

